Where five Notre Dame opponents rank in Week 6 AP Top 25
Notre Dame remains unranked in the Associated Press Top 25, which refreshed Sunday afternoon. The Irish have not appeared in it since the Sept. 4 version, released after Week 1. They have not received a vote in any of the last three updates, including Sunday.
The first of Notre Dame’s four remaining games against top-20 teams, though, is on tap following an idle weekend. The Irish (2-2) play No. 16 BYU in Las Vegas Oct. 8 (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC).
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The Cougars (4-1) moved up three spots from last week’s poll. They most recently defeated Utah State 38-26 Sept. 29 for their second straight win. The lone blemish is a Sept. 17 loss to then-No. 25 Oregon.
Notre Dame also hosts No. 5 Clemson Nov. 5 and plays at No. 6 USC Nov. 26 to end the regular season. The Tigers (5-0, 3-0 ACC) defeated North Carolina State 30-20 Saturday in what was a top-10 matchup. The Trojans (5-0, 3-0 Pac-12) beat Arizona State 42-25. Neither moved in the rankings.
Those three were ranked in the preseason poll and looked like three of Notre Dame’s four toughest games before the season began. An Oct. 29 trip to Syracuse, though, didn’t register as a difficult game in August. The Orange went 5-7 and 2-6 in the ACC. It looks like a tricky game now. Syracuse is 5-0 (2-0 in the ACC) and a new addition to the AP poll, at No. 22. A 59-0 win over FCS opponent Wagner pushed the Orange into the rankings.
The Irish have already played one ranked team, No. 3 Ohio State. The Buckeyes defeated them 21-10 in Week 1 and are 5-0 overall with a 2-0 Big Ten record. North Carolina (five points) is the only future or past Notre Dame opponent among the 15 unranked teams to receive votes in Sunday’s poll.
There are no two-loss teams in this week’s poll. Defeating BYU and some losses from teams lower in the poll could be the push Notre Dame needs to re-enter the top 25.
Week 6 AP Top 25
- Alabama (5-0) (25 first-place votes)
- Georgia (5-0) (28)
- Ohio State (5-0) (10)
- Michigan (5-0)
- Clemson (5-0)
- USC (5-0)
- Oklahoma State (4-0)
- Tennessee (4-0)
- Ole Miss (5-0)
- Penn State (5-0)
- Utah (4-1)
- Oregon (4-1)
- Kentucky (4-1)
- North Carolina State (4-1)
- Wake Forest (4-1)
- BYU (4-1)
- TCU (4-0)
- UCLA (5-0)
- Kansas (5-0)
- Kansas State (4-1)
- Washington (4-1)
- Syracuse (5-0)
- Mississippi State (4-1)
- Cincinnati (4-1)
- LSU (4-1)
